Choices
by BlueSimplicity
Summary: Ryo reflects on his life and the choices he has and has not made.


**Author's Note: This story is dedicated to my beautiful Kirajen. Thank you for everything that you've done for me, and for continuing to encourage me throughout it all.**

**This is also dedicated to my beloveds – S, GD, SN and BC. You know who you are and you know what you mean to me. I guess it's finally my turn now.**

**Reviews and concrit are greatly appreciated. **

**FAKE is the property of Sanami Matoh. I am making no money off of this. **

**CHOICES**

The first time Ryo faced death he was eighteen years old, when his parents had died.

One day there were there, and the next…they simply _weren't._

Sometimes he looks back and he thinks it strange what he can and can't remember. He can recall the tie he wore to the funeral, the pale blue of an icy sky, the way the band on his watch itched his wrist. But he can't for the life of him remember the colour of the dress his mother was buried in, the one he and his aunt had spent hours looking through her closet trying to choose.

And then he wonders if it matters anyway, when no matter what, it was not a choice he had wanted to make.

---

The first time Ryo knew he was officially a police officer was the day of his graduation, when they pinned his badge to his lapel. He remembers feeling pride, and overwhelmed, because now there were two promises in his life.

The first to find out the truth about what had happened to his parents.

And the second to always remember to protect and serve.

It was an oath he hoped he could keep.

---

The first time Ryo ever killed someone all he can remember is the silence.

There had been sirens and police radios and the relieved sobs of the survivor. But suddenly, within him, there was only silence. He had done his duty, he had protected and served. But never in his life did his oath seem so meaningless.

She had been grateful, the woman he had saved. An innocent passerby grabbed in the heat of panic by a young man who was looking for the money to score his next fix. He had been going through withdrawal and his fingers had been trembling on the grip of the gun. He would have killed her and the order had been given – _shoot to kill_. And so he had.

And she had been grateful. Embracing him that day, and then later in the week when she had come to give her final statement to the police, she had invited him over to her family's house for dinner. Her husband, her mother - it seemed they all had wanted him there in order to say thank you.

But quietly, gently, with the silence still inside of him, he had declined.

Because Ryo knows that there are some victories that should never be celebrated.

---

The first time Dee kissed him, Ryo remembers being angry. Not disgusted, not ashamed, not threatened.

Only angry.

Because there in the park, on that night, Dee had taken their first kiss. And that should have been something that he had had the choice to give.

He wonders sometimes, if he _had_ been asked, would his answer still have been no?

---

The first time Ryo realized he was a father, _really_ a father, it had been such a simple thing.

The school nurse had called – a basketball game during recess, rough-housing that had gone a little too far, and a broken arm; all common enough for a boy of Bikky's age. Ryo had rushed to the hospital, Dee trailing quietly in his wake to the room where, once the door opened, blue eyes mixed with fear and tears rose to meet his. Seeing that small face, he can't recall ever feeling such relief in his life.

He remembers later that night watching Bikky sleep, and wondering if _his_ father had ever spent nights like this, looking over him when he had been hurt or sick. And he knows now that he has made this choice, for good or ill, and this child is now his responsibility. He fears for his well-being, but also for himself, hoping that one day Bikky won't look back and not see what he tried to do, but only what he lacked.

And in the quiet of that room, as he watches Bikky sleep, he thinks of his own parents, of that day when he was eighteen and his line of work now, and he can only hope that he can keep history from repeating itself.

---

When Ryo now thinks about the first time he and Dee made love, he is filled with regret and wishes it could be different. Not that he would have stopped it from happening, and not that he regretted the choice he made.

Only after, he wishes he had stayed. That their first morning could have been spent coming to know all of the things he had denied himself for those two years.

But it's OK, because it is different now. And he does know.

He thinks about it sometimes, and smiles to himself. Once in a while Dee will catch him with a look that is both overflowing and yet strangely still. And he will cock his head to the side and ask him what's wrong. But Ryo will only look at him, and with a smile shake his head. What he doesn't tell Dee, even in those moments, is that he remembers _everything, _and never with any regret.

His memories of that night are his secret, and it is a secret he chooses to keep.

---

The first time Ryo told Dee he loved him, he knew, he just _knew_ that for the first time in his life he was making a choice for himself. Not out of a sense of duty. Not to uphold an oath he had taken in his youth. And not because life had thrown him a circumstance he couldn't avoid.

He remembers the way Dee looked at him, how the wind had tousled his hair, and the silence between them that had only lasted a second. But that second was more than enough, because a choice had been made.

And then he remembers the feel of lips on his, hands in his hair, the arch of a back, and his body suddenly surrendering to pleasure.

And since then nothing has ever ever been the same.

---

Ryo has always valued the right to make his own choices. And for the first time in his life he knows, _he just knows_ he has made the right one.


End file.
